Chương 64: (63) 2.16. A Whole New Tier

"So, what is it you want to be able to do, Vin?" Eithan asked him, the two of them having retaken their stools on the outskirts of town once more. After lunch, Vin had found Eithan waiting for him here, and the two of them had immediately jumped back into the lesson. Once he'd shown Eithan he'd gotten a handle on Summon Stone, the Stone Mage had been impressed and declared it was time to step it up a notch.

"Seeing as you can only safely learn two more earth affinity spells, really it boils down to what you want to be able to accomplish," Eithan explained.

"So, what are you looking for? A method to defend yourself? Something more utility based? An offensive spell? Most of my spells are still lost to me until I can raise my attributes once more, but I have a couple of lower tier earth spells you could pick between."

"Would you mind showing them to me?" Vin asked, both excited just to see more magic and eager for the easy experience gain his new class seemed to provide.

"Sure," Eithan shrugged.

"You've already seen Stone Furniture for utility, so let's start with defense then. Say there was a monster rushing at one of my students, and I wanted to protect them." Gesturing to the side, the mage spoke." Stone Wall." Immediately a thick, six foot tall wall erupted from the rocky ground, rising into position in barely a second. Vin stared in awe at the monolith now marring the once flat area next to them, easily able to imagine a monster running headfirst into the sudden barrier. New spell witnessed!

Tier 2 Earth Spell (Stone Wall). 2, 000 exp gained.

"A critical spell that all of our Stone Mages are required to learn," Eithan said, lowering his hand.

"A well placed wall can mean the difference between life and death after all."

"Why did the wall rise out of the ground rather than just appear, like with Summon Stone?" Vin asked, looking at the wall curiously.

"It uses the Summon Stone spell as the base of its runic formation right?"

"Indeed it does, and an excellent question," Eithan smiled at him.

"If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably due once more to the runes' understanding of what a wall is. Tell me, when you think of a stone, it's rather simple to imagine a stone flying through the air as though someone tossed it, yes?" Vin nodded, and Eithan continued.

"But when you think of a wall… Can you really imagine a wall just floating in the air?"

"No…" Vin said, realizing what he was getting at.

"Walls have to be built on the ground. And while I guess I could imagine some powerful wind picking one up and hurling it around, that's definitely not their natural state."

"Precisely. Which is exactly why the wall remains in contact with the ground during its formation, despite the fact that I am technically creating it out of my own mana."

"Now, once the spell is complete, it doesn't have to remain like that of course," Eithan said, pointing a finger at the new wall." Stone Shot." As though propelled by an explosion, a small shard of stone manifested in front of his finger and rocketed toward the wall, smashing into the structure with a loud bang that sent cracks spiraling throughout its face.

Eithan fired off two more shots, each one smashing into the wall with just as much force, until his third shot finally knocked the stone wall over entirely in an explosion of dust. New spell witnessed! Tier 2 Earth Spell (Stone Shot). 2, 000 exp gained.

"This is the simplest offensive spell there is when it comes to earth magic, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous," Eithan said, a solemn look on his face.

"It pains me to say, but I've seen more than one eager apprentice during my life accidentally strike someone with this spell in their haste to practice their magic."

"Don't worry, I've got an excellent friend in mind that can help me with target practice," Vin grinned, imagining Alka's frown as he tried to pelt her with magic rocks.

"Well then, you've got three options, and only two available slots you can fill without risking taking on an earth affinity to your mana," Eithan summed up.

"What would you like to learn first?"

"Magic sucks," Vin complained, pressing his forehead into the cool stone table as his friends ate a rather late dinner around him. Scule and Reginald still had yet to return, but he'd run into Shia and Alka back at the house they were staying in after finally giving up on his spell for the evening. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Vin. It's a second tier spell." Shia rolled her eyes, ripping into her drumstick with a hearty sigh.

"Of course it's going to take you more than a few hours to learn."

"I just don't understand how there's such a jump between tier one and tier two!" Vin complained, his mind swimming as he tried to picture the complicated runic formation for Stone Shot once again. He'd spent all evening working on understanding it and copying it with his own mana, and all he had to show for his efforts were a few nasty scratches from a runic backlash when he'd summoned a stone that had promptly exploded in his face.

Even if it hadn't been all too damaging physically, his pride had taken quite the hit.

"If you ask me, I think this is healthy for you," Alka grinned, floating over to him and poking him in the side with a cold ethereal finger.

"You were getting a bit too cocky learning so many simple spells so quickly. About time something put you on your ass."

"If you think this is bad, just wait until you see tier three spells. Or four," Shia snorted, shaking her head.

"I'd only managed to wrap my head around a single tier four spell before the Great Reset, and that feat had taken me a few weeks of nothing but studying. I'm not even sure if I slept, it's all a big blur to be honest."

"Really?" Vin asked, lifting his head enough to glance at the Druid.

"I thought you were a pretty high level back then?"

"I was in the upper thirties, but that's honestly not all that impressive," Shia admitted, wiping the bird's juices from her face.

"A good rule of thumb when it comes to spellcasting is that tiers often coincide with groupings of ten levels. So someone with a level in the twenties might have some tier two spells, thirties might have tier three spells, and so on. The fact that I was able to learn a tier four spell at all before even hitting my second prestige was a huge accomplishment, something my master reminded me of whenever I got frustrated."

"Well there you go, my level's in the twenties. I should be able to figure out this tier two spell," Vin grumbled, dropping his head back onto the table.

"Vin, you literally just prestiged," Shia drawled, clearly done trying to drive her point home.

"If a tier one spell takes you a few hours to learn now, it's not that surprising that a tier two spell would take you a day or two."

"Oh, let him sulk a little," Alka said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.

"Anyway, he's been staring at rocks all day, and I've been helping patrol the perimeter in case any more of those freaky swamp guys show up. What have you been up to?"

"I spent most of today down in their farm," Shia said, her face glowing at the thought of all the new plants.

"Alka, you have got to check it out. Despite their lack of nature magic, they somehow found a way to sustain enough plants to keep their village comfortably fed year round! It's honestly incredible."

"Eh, my town didn't have any Druids or fancy nature magic and we managed," Alka shrugged, not nearly as impressed as the elf.

"Based on what I heard, the hardest part of farming on my world was keeping the green sea trimmed back to provide us with farmland. The grass grew fast enough that we needed people dedicated to cutting it back pretty much all day, every day. I think they even had their own Trimmer class or something."

"What would something like that even prestige into?" Vin asked, his moping unable to keep up with his curiosity.

"Hell if I know," Alka shrugged.

"Can't say I really hung around the farms all that much. Far too busy practicing and honing my skills."

"Come on, they grow so many plants without using nature magic!" Shia repeated, looking at the two of them like she couldn't believe they weren't blown away.

"You guys don't think that's crazy?"

"Shia, I think that's how most people grow plants," Vin said, begrudgingly sitting up straight and giving her a tired look.

"My world didn't have any sort of magic at all, and we managed to feed nearly eight billion people to the point where a good number of us were obese. Granted there were plenty more people struggling for food all across the world, so I guess our system was far from perfect." His two friends looked at him like he was insane, their mouths hanging open slightly.

"Did you say eight billion people?" Shia repeated, almost struggling to say the word.

"Yeah, last I remember. Probably a bit higher than that actually," Vin shrugged.

"Why, how many people lived in your worlds?"

"I mean, I have no idea, but I can't imagine it was that many… We didn't really pay attention to anything outside the Sacred Forest, and you'd have to ask Erik if you want numbers on how many elves there used to be. Alka, what about you?"

"More than ten," the ghost snorted, rolling her eyes.

"I told you, I spent all my time practicing. Why would I care how many people our Scholars estimated there were throughout the kingdom, let alone the whole world?" I guess that is a random piece of information to know. Vin hadn't considered that it was only thanks to such conveniences like telephones and the internet that they'd managed to come to that number in the first place.

Briefly he wondered just how many people there actually were on Edregon, but seeing as they had absolutely no way of knowing, he'd have to shelve that question for a while.

"Well, even if neither of you are impressed, I think it's remarkable what they're doing here," Shia repeated, frowning at the two of them.

"More importantly however, what's our plan moving forward, Vin? As nice as the break has been, and as entertaining as it was to see Scule arrested, I don't think staying in the village is really going to do much for us. With your new passive you can keep working on your new spells as we explore, right?"

"Yeah… I think as soon as we get the runic object Scule requested for Reginald we're good to head out," Vin confirmed. He had a feeling that if they stayed here too long, the elder would eventually end up asking him to take care of another task for her involving the swamp creatures. And while he didn't mind helping, he had to remember that Shia and Alka had their own goals they were traveling with him for, neither of which would get any closer to completion if they just stayed here.

"Alka, you good if we bypass the swamp for now? I know you're always itching for a fight, but I can't say I'm eager to get bogged down."

"I only fight people when I have to, it's monsters I enjoy killing," Alka said, crossing her arms.

"Don't confuse me with some crazed serial killer."

"Sorry, didn't mean to say it like that. Though I guess that settles it," Vin said, looking at his two friends in turn.

"As soon as Scule and Reginald come back and get their runic object, we'll head out."

"Start thinking about which fragment we should hit first."